Johanna Lindsey: Heart of a Warrior

Unfortunately for them, Tedra and her family were governed by the policies of the League of Confederated Planets, of which Kystran ranked twelfth, and by which the neighboring Niva star system also abided. Steps could be taken to prevent war, which had been done to keep more advanced planets from trying to take over Sha-Ka'an when it was discovered in the Niva system. But once war was declared, no help or hindrance could be offered, for the simple reason that some planets were too highly advanced for others to hope to compete with. For example, the battleship they had in their control could totally wipe out both Sunder and Armoru.

Nearly an hour had passed since the general had left them alone in his office. Tedra sat cross-legged in the center of his desk. The chairs in the room were too small to risk sitting in without breaking. Dalden, Falon, and Falon's brother, Jadell, were sitting on the floor, leaning against the walls. Shanelle was pacing the room, feeling the worst of their impatience, since she alone had any sympathies for the Sunderans, having gotten to know Donilla Vand during her short stay here and liking the women.

Not surprisingly, when Donilla finally arrived, Shanelle pounced on her with her first concern. "Why have you been imprisoned?"

Donilla smiled. She was a small woman, barely five feet in height, which was the norm on this planet. Their men only averaged half a foot more. To them, the Sha-Ka'ani really were giants, and Tedra and Shanelle, only a few inches short of six feet each, were close runners-up.

But Donilla showed none of the nervousness that other Sunderans did in their presence. Her gray eyes warm in greeting, Donilla held out a welcoming hand to Shanelle.

"They didn't tell me it was you who answered our call for help," the ex-general said. "I can't tell you how often I worried about you, despite your assurance that you would be fine. But since he is with you, dare I hope that you are comfortable now with your father's choice for you?"

The word comfortable didn't come close to describing life with a warrior, but it did bring a smile to Shanelle as well. "Yes, I came here previously with foolish fears, all of which have been put to rest. Happiness beyond measure is what my lifemate gives me."

"My woman is being modest," Falon said as he rose from the floor to stand next to her.

The remark caused them all to laugh, even Tedra, which momentarily relieved the tension of not knowing what was going on. Shanelle then took a moment to introduce Donilla to her mother-she had met everyone else in the room the first time they were there.

Donilla, like most people who first met the Ly-San-Ters, couldn't hide her amazement that Tedra could be old enough to have children of twenty-one, when she looked no older than thirty herself. Nor did either of her twin children take after her in looks. Both Dalden and Shanelle were blond and amber-eyed, while Tedra's long hair was pitch black, her eyes a light aquamarine. A woman of strict physical disciplines all her life, she was aging very well.

Shanelle got back to the question that hadn't been answered yet. "How did you end up in prison, Donilla?"

Donilla replied, "Several months after you left us, I had an opportunity to meet with a large number of the women who, like me, had taken over key positions on Sunder with the use of Altering Rods. It wasn't hard to see that most of them weren't happy with the way things had turned out, any more than I was. Our original motive was sound, to keep Sunder from going to war. We just hadn't counted on the results leaving us with men who were barely recognizable from their former selves, or that we would feel so guilty about it. So, in effect, another conspiracy was begun. It wouldn't have worked unless enough of us were willing, because like the first instance, it had to be accomplished in a close time frame. One man back in power could do nothing if he had no support, after all. But we pulled it off again: we gave them back their identities and memories."

"And ended up in prison for it," Shanelle said indignantly. "I can't believe-"

"Yes, you can," Donilla cut in. "We took away their memories of who they were, took away their power, took away their aggression. They'll never trust us again."

"Sounds like you haven't stopped feeling guilty about it," Tedra remarked. "The way you went about it was underhanded, yes, but your motives were sound. And a few months' detention is long enough for trying to keep your planet from going to war, a noble effort in my book."

"Thank you-I think," Donilla replied, blushing slightly. "But if we didn't feel we deserved what we got, we would have made a fuss about it and been freed by now. Most of us see it as a vacation, one well needed after the stress and worry of trying to keep our men under our control for so long. And it's not a real prison they've detained us in. We have all the luxuries we could ask for. it's more like a resort just one with locks on the doors."

Shanelle would have discussed it more, but Tedra was more interested in the immediate problem and asked Donilla, "You know why we're here?"

"Yes. I may be locked away, but I'm still the only one Ferrill feels comfortable talking out his problems with, so he's kept me informed about everything that has happened since he took over again.

"If you're now at war with Armoru, we can't-"

"No, it's nothing like that," Donilla interrupted, smiling. "There was one benefit of what we did. We didn't make our men forget about what had happened during the years of our rule, and five years of seeing that we could get along just fine without conquering any more people made them not jump back into the race of who could wipe out their neighbors first. They have in fact continued our plans of defense rather than attack. We just might be ready and fully prepared when Armoru finally makes its move."

Tedra grinned. "Congratulations and welcome to the concept of Life Appreciation. But what, then, is the problem here?"

"A crate of Altering Rods has been stolen," Donilla admitted with a sigh.

"That's an internal problem. Why would you ask for off-world help for it?"

"Because the rods have been taken off Sunder, and we have no means to leave Sunder ourselves to retrieve them."

The Sunderans might be highly advanced in most fields of science, but space travel wasn't one of them. They hadn't even known that worlds other than Armoru existed until they had been discovered by the Antury six years earlier. They had, in fact, been trying to build their first spaceship at the time, not for space travel, but to get them over to the neighboring planet of Armoru with the intent of global war, with Armoru doing exactly the same. It had been a race about who could invade first, a race that Sunder dropped out of during the few years the women had been in power.

"Do you know who took them?"

"Yes, we don't get many visitors here, since we have so little to offer in trade. But these people came with the sole intent of buying the Altering Rods from us. This was strange in itself, since very few people know of the rods on our own world, let alone on other worlds."

"Did the Antury who discovered you know?"

"Possible, but doubtful-unless they have some means of reading our minds. The rods weren't something we were proud of by then. Shanelle was told about them because she needed reassurance on how we could help her against giant warriors like these here."

The rods had been used on those warriors and had even worked on most of them, making them forget that they had come there to find Shanelle. The process had failed on Falon, however, because he had refused to learn the Sunderan language before coming down to their planet and for the rods to work, it was necessary for the targets to understand what was being said to them.

The other warriors who had come down didn't have Falon's deep distrust of all things unnatural to Sha-Ka'an, and since almost any ship computer could analyze a new language and create a Sublim so that the language could be learned in just a few hours, the old universal language that was so frustrating had long since become obsolete. Sublims made it possible to communicate with newly discovered worlds with ease. There were a few glitches, like some words not having an immediate association and so needing a visual or verbal explanation to make sense. But basically, Sublims worked amazingly well and were used by all world traders and discoverers.